Well, the election is over, and I am not very happy with the results. At least in the local races, which tend to affect me more directly and more rapidly, the good guys won.
Unlike others who are still dwelling on the election, it was pretty easy for me to accept. At least this time Bush won with a plurality, although not the mandate he is claiming.
But what has been worrying me lately has more to do with the reasons for that win that are emerging versus who actually won, and has led me to ask the question “Is Democracy Broken?”.
What brought this to a head was a story on NPR about how textbooks are chosen in more than half of the States. In 26 States the selection of which textbooks will be used in the school systems is done at the State level. In Texas, this process involves a lot of public input, which one would think as being “good”, “democracy in action”, etc.
However, with respect to the new health textbook, in the chapter on sexuality, there is no mention of birth control, outside of abstinence, and no discussion of sexually transmitted diseases. Apparently a large group of concerned parents wanted that stricken from the textbook, and the publisher, seeing one of their largest customers about to be lost, complied.
In some states this is made even more upsetting in the fact that textbooks now have to present the “theory” of creation alongside
evolution. I’m sorry, but “theories” are by their very nature subject to scrutiny and criticism. “God did it” doesn’t lend itself to such analysis.
“Evolution can be demonstrated by fossils.”
“God put them there.”
“The commonality of DNA shows evolution from common ancestors.”
“God did that.”
You can believe what you want, and justify it anyway you want, but within the framework of scientific inquiry creationism fails.
Now, democracy or not, if we all decided to vote that the Sun rises in the west, it wouldn’t change anything. Statistics show that US parents do a crappy job of educating their children about sex, and since that does affect me, even though I am child-free, I want something done about it. Young parents and young people suffering or dying of disease impacts my life.
I am not really sure why the US is so hung up on sex. It’s everywhere, but no one wants to talk about it. I heard the phrase “friends with benefits” awhile back and I had to ask Andrea what it meant (friends having sex without “dating”). We didn’t have that phrase when I was growing up.
You go overseas, and brief nudity and frank sexual conversations, while not everywhere, pop up occasionally and they don’t cause a national panic, such as Janet Jackson’s exposed breast did here (in looking for a picture, strictly to satisfy my curiosity about what I thought I saw, I found it on Yahoo … in the UK … just by browsing to that site).
Which brings me back to the election and democracy. The issue that seemed to get out the vote with the religious right was gay marriage. Call it what you will, “civil unions” etc., it has nothing to do with marriage and everything to do with homosexuality.
Given that this is a theory, and thus subject to scrutiny and criticism, let’s examine it.
The argument can be made that those who oppose gay marriage are doing so on the grounds that marriage is a religious sacrament, and since most Christian religions in the US interpret the Bible to describe homosexuality as a sin, they don’t want their sacrament “tainted”.
I say that’s crap. If marriage is such a sacrament, where is the outcry when Brittany Spears gets married on a whim, gets it annulled, and then marries another man, who had children out of wedlock. Where is all the energy that is directed against gay marriage actually working to “save” the sacrament?
No, the fact is that these people fear that any recognition of the “gay lifestyle” would be a step closer to validating it. And I love that term, “gay lifestyle”. As if it was, for everybody, a choice.
You take one of these people who is against gay marriage, and ask him if he could date another man. You can guess the answer. So, if “no way in hell” indicates a strong inability to consider the notion, how can it, for everyone, be a choice?
Anyway, I ramble.
I have a thesis that true equality of the sexes can not be achieved until homosexuality is validated. Here it is:
The definition of homosexuality usually involves some sort of sexual act between members of the same sex. That these same acts can be considered normal for those of different sexes implies that while it may be okay for a woman to perform a certain act, it is “disgusting” or abnormal for a man to do the same thing.
Consciously or not, this means that women are placed in an inferior role. And until this inferiority can be removed there can be no equality.
And that’s what bothers me the most about our current democracy. The founding fathers feared that “everyman” would be able to vote, and so they limited it to white landholders. While I don’t agree with this, it does seem that there needs to be, I don’t know, a little more education and thought added into the voting process and a lot less emotion.
For as I like secular education to be based on things like the scientific process, I like my government to be based on the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Think about it, almost every amendment grants freedom – it doesn’t restrict it. The right to free speech, the right to freedom of religion, the right of women to vote, the freedom of everyone despite the color of their skin.
Yet the amendments under discussion now – making flag burning a crime, outlawing gay marriage, strive to take away freedom.
Sorry for this post to be so serious, and I promise something funny or cute next time. For now, I’m off to the west to watch the sun rise.